What Biden Miscalculated About His Classified Documents

[0] From New York Times, I'm Michael Bobarro.

[1] This is a daily.

[2] Today.

[3] For the fifth time, classified documents belonging to President Biden have been found outside of a secure government location, this time by FBI agents searching his home.

[4] My colleague, Mike Shear, has been trying to understand how Biden chose to handle those discoveries since they began.

[5] And why for so long he left the public in the dark?

[6] It's Tuesday, January 24th.

[7] Mike, I want to start with what happened over this past weekend in Wilmington, Delaware.

[8] Tell us about that.

[9] Yes, it was really quite remarkable, actually.

[10] The unprecedented FBI search of a sitting president's home for classified documents, escalating the legal and political situation for President Biden.

[11] You had the scene of the FBI and a bunch of agents at the invitation of President Biden's personal lawyers.

[12] We found out about this on Saturday.

[13] FBI agents spent nearly 13 hours scouring his Delaware home on Friday.

[14] Conducting what ended up being a 13 -hour search of his personal home in Wilmington, Delaware.

[15] Investigators reviewed personally handwritten notes, files, papers, binders, memorabilia, to -do lists, schedules, and reminders going back decades.

[16] Literally combing through every nook and cranny in every room and office and garage and closet looking for any indication of additional classified documents that might have been there improperly, and in fact, they did find them.

[17] Six items, they said, that included some classification markings.

[18] Some go back as far as his time in the Senate.

[19] This drip, drip, drip, just continues.

[20] And for those keeping count, this is now the fifth time in about, let's say, three months that classified documents have been found in President Biden's possession in places where they just shouldn't be.

[21] Right.

[22] Because where they should be are insecure government locations like the White House.

[23] So at this point, we've clearly reached a moment where the story of Biden and how he has handled classified documents has become something of a rolling public.

[24] relations and legal mess for this president.

[25] Absolutely.

[26] And the amazing thing is what has ended up transpiring is exactly what they had hoped to head off when they discussed how to handle the discovery of these documents at the very beginning of this situation.

[27] Well, Mike, I want you to explain that because I know that you and a few of our colleagues have spent the past couple of days trying to both piece that together and understand it.

[28] the calculations made by President Biden and those around him about the best way to approach a very bad situation, which is, you know, classified documents found where they shouldn't be in his orbit.

[29] So tell us about that.

[30] Right.

[31] So there's been a lot of reporting about this over the last couple of weeks.

[32] What we had decided was that we would look at a very specific period of time as this has all developed.

[33] And that is what we found to be the 68 days.

[34] between when the first set of documents were discovered in early November of last year, and when the White House finally told the public about it in early January.

[35] And in essence, what we found was that the president and a very, very small circle of legal and political advisors had decided that they could settle the matter quickly and quietly if they were super cooperative with the Department of Justice at every turn, answer every question the investigators might want, really everything they could do to stand in contrast to the way former President Trump had handled a similar investigation into classified documents found at his home in Mara Lago.

[36] The former president and his lawyers initially resisted efforts by the Justice Department to look into it.

[37] They refused to allow searches of the House, which then led to a raid of his property and subpoenas.

[38] And so what the Biden administration thought, was if they did the opposite, they cooperate fully with the department, hopefully would avoid a big, sprawling public investigation.

[39] Ultimately, they would not have to disclose anything to the public because ultimately they hoped it would just go away.

[40] And, of course, that's not what happened.

[41] Fascinating.

[42] So the thinking here from within the Biden world is that with this Trump -classified document investigation playing out in a parallel universe.

[43] They would do everything differently in a legal sense and thus not have to tell the public pretty much anything and it would all just work out.

[44] Right, but it turned out that they committed a series of miscalculations.

[45] They miscalculated how many documents would ultimately be found.

[46] They miscalculated the way the Department of Justice would respond and ultimately they miscalculated the way in which people would see President Biden's handling of documents versus President Trump's.

[47] Hmm.

[48] So, Mike, let's talk through what this strategy has looked like in practice from day one and how we arrive at those miscalculations that you just summarized.

[49] Right.

[50] So it all starts on November 2nd.

[51] That's six days before the midterm elections, very important for President Biden.

[52] that's when members of the president's team are cleaning out an office in Washington at this think tank that he had worked at before becoming president and had essentially been untouched for a couple of years now.

[53] They're cleaning that out.

[54] They find a handful of classified documents.

[55] They did immediately send the documents to the National Archives, which keeps these kinds of government papers.

[56] The National Archives informed the Department of Justice.

[57] But it wasn't a...

[58] until about November 9th or 10th that the Justice Department then gets back in touch with the president's lawyers says, hey, we are now looking into this.

[59] And that is when the president and this very small group of AIDS had to make a decision.

[60] What are we going to do?

[61] And the decision was we're going to completely cooperate but we're going to be quiet.

[62] We are not going to make anything about this public.

[63] Right.

[64] And this is probably the biggest of these early moments, because when the Department of Justice tells the president that it's looking into something, essentially that it's investigating the president's conduct, that is, in theory, a very natural moment to tell the public.

[65] Yeah, a natural moment to tell the public, and something pretty significant, especially in the light of the investigation that was going on to his predecessor, right?

[66] So it's hard to imagine that at that moment they didn't at least have a sense of the importance that this could be.

[67] Right.

[68] So how have you come to understand the logic of Biden and this tight circle of advisors deciding not to tell the public that the Department of Justice is now investigating its handling of these classified documents?

[69] So their explanation now of those early decisions was that they essentially were trying to follow scrupulously all of the rules that the Justice Department usually has about ongoing investigations, which is to say not to talk about them.

[70] But there was also a second reason, because they thought that if they went public and tried to explain what had happened in the president's actions, folks at the Justice Department would see that as potentially being an attempt to unduly influence the course of this investigation, because, of course, the president is the Attorney General's boss.

[71] Right.

[72] And anything that he says publicly could be seen as an attempt to put his thumb on the scales of justice.

[73] God.

[74] So they're saying our hands are tied.

[75] And from what you're saying, that makes a certain amount of sense, at least in the beginning.

[76] Right.

[77] I mean, it does to a degree.

[78] I mean, there is no question that Department of Justice prefers to do these kinds of investigations quietly.

[79] It makes it easier to find the right people to talk to.

[80] They don't have to compete with the swirl of news every day.

[81] But at the end of the day, the White House had to make that decision themselves.

[82] Are they going to inform the public?

[83] Because it's ultimately a public relations call to make, and that was the one they made, to stay silent.

[84] Right.

[85] Because you're saying there's nothing that prevents the White House from coming out, from someone standing at a podium in the White House briefing room and saying, we have something to announce.

[86] We found documents.

[87] The Department of Justice is looking at them.

[88] We don't have a whole a lot more to say.

[89] Sorry, it might pollute an investigation, but we owe you this information, so you're welcome.

[90] Right.

[91] They could have done that in November, and they chose not to.

[92] Okay, so once they choose this strategy of cooperate, but stay silent, what's the next big moment?

[93] So the next moment comes just before Christmas.

[94] On December 20th, the president's lawyers, having hoped that the Justice Department would say, hey, we finished our inquiry.

[95] This is nothing, we're going to go away, and that hasn't happened.

[96] The Justice Department is still looking into the case.

[97] And the president's lawyers decide, you know what, it's probably time to search other places that documents might be, including the president's homes, one in Wilmington, Delaware, and one in Rojoboth Beach, Delaware.

[98] And so the president's lawyers go ahead, they search both places, and they do find some documents in Wilmington at the president's home.

[99] But the president and those same aides decide we're going to continue with our strategy.

[100] Cooperation and silence.

[101] We're not going to tell the public.

[102] In other words, they do tell the Justice Department, hey, we found a lot more documents in this House in Wilmington, Delaware.

[103] But they do not tell us that fact.

[104] Right, exactly.

[105] And you have a situation now where whether they sort of realized it in full or not, they were clearly playing with fire at this point.

[106] because, you know, the Justice Department clearly wasn't going away.

[107] It was continuing to examine and look into this.

[108] Right.

[109] And so the decision that they made originally in November and now we're sticking to in December was becoming riskier and riskier.

[110] Mike, at this point, because you are trying to reconstruct this period, does anyone inside the White House go to this small group advisors and say, you know, it's probably time to tell the public what's going on?

[111] Sure, there's a risk of having something.

[112] influence on the DOJ, but if we craft the right message and we're careful, we can do it, and we will avoid the allegation that we were trying to hide this.

[113] Well, so we don't have a real clear picture about who said what during that period, but what we do know is that much of the White House was cut out of even knowing what was going on at that point.

[114] So the broader kind of White House public relations machine that we all know, the communication staff, the press secretary and her staff, nobody knew what was going on at this point.

[115] And so there was much less opportunity for that kind of full debate about what should be done and what they should say.

[116] And that ultimately comes back to be a problem for them when on January 9th...

[117] CBS News has learned that classified documents...

[118] CBS News reports...